The Farrow Ridges

With a sickening lurch, the Wind Zephyr fell, then steadied, then fell again. The phraxchamber was misfiring and at the controls of our small vessel, Captain Ironshank fought to keep us aloft. He was fighting a losing battle. Moments later, the phraxchamber’s glow went out, the Wind Zephyr’s prow dipped and we found ourselves hurtling down towards the jagged treeline far below.

‘The sails, Forden!’ he bellowed through the roar of windrush. ‘Break out the sails!’

Not daring to unfasten my seat strap, I strained every muscle as I reached back and released the tolley net that held the spidersilk aft-sails in place. They billowed up intothe sky above us like edge-wraiths in search of prey and, as they filled, slowed the Wind Zephyr’s calamitous dive.

At the helm, Gart Ironshank’s hands were a blur of movement as he adjusted the flight levers and realigned the hull weights. The treeline came up towards us, but the Wind Zephyr slowed sufficiently to allow the captain to steer us towards a berth in the forest canopy.

This turned out to be a lufwood tree, into whose luxuriant foliage the Wind Zephyr plunged, before becoming lodged tight amongst its uppermost branches. Around us, the green of the Deepwoods was flecked with the iridescent scarlets and deep-hued blues of startled skybacks and skullpeckers taking to the air in gaggling, chattering flocks.

Beside me, my faithful companion, Kulltuft, slumped forward, his mighty barrel chest rising and falling as he took in great gulping lungfuls of air. I reached over and patted his head comfortingly.

‘There, there, boy,’ I soothed. ‘No harm done…’

From above us came a soft, sighing sound and we found ourselves enveloped in white billows of spidersilk as the sails came down around us. It took the best part of an hour to gather and stow the sails, check the hull for damage and begin repairs to the phraxchamber.

‘The ice of the high sky clogged the cooling plates,’ Gart explained, ‘but the chamber itself seems to be working. It’ll take a short while to re-fire it, and then we can be on our way.’

Kulltuft and I left him to it. I was no engineer and once the hull had been lifted from the cradle of lufwood branches, there was no heavy lifting for Kulltuft to do. Instead, we sat in the Wind Zephyr and marvelled at the towering glory of the Deepwoods trees about us. Majestic lullabees, broad-branched copperwoods and the soaring pinnacles of the mighty ironwood pine stands, black on the distant horizon.

Gart clambered aboard and the familiar hum of the phraxchamber sounded below us. With a wisp of steam from the funnel and a faint shudder, the Wind Zephyr rose up into the evening sky. No sooner had we cleared the forest canopy than a large black silhouette came into view on our starboard side. I had never seen a vessel like it.

With its timbered fore-hull, high curlicued aft-hull and tall masts, it resembled an antique sky galleon from the First Age of Flight. But at its centre, instead of a rock-cage, was a tall funnelled phraxchamber belching out plumes of white steam. And it was fast. Faster than any sky vessel I’d ever encountered. In less than a minute, the skyship had closed in on the Wind Zephyr, and I could see that its foredeck was crowded with a motley collection of outlandishly clothed and heavily armed individuals.

Gart Ironside looked up from the controls, his face gaunt with shock. ‘Sky pirates,’ he gasped.

At sunset, we all took our places at the pentagon table in the newly-completed Great Chamber of Farrow Hall, a splendid two-storey building, with its council room, meeting attic and a small basement library, that stands on the northern shore of the Farrow Lake. Beyond its broad windows, the sun was sinking down below the glittering Farrow Lake, fluffy clouds reflected on its smooth, golden surface.

The Roost Marshal banged his gavel and called the meeting to order. Manticula, a mistwaif from the small colony established just below the Five Falls, read the minutes of the previous meeting and we voted unanimously to accept them. Then we started working down the agenda.

Hirum Gryke, a white trog from the Water Caverns, rose to make an impassioned plea that fishing by incomers in the caverns be limited, since stocks of the stone-eye fish - upon which the white trogs depend - were being depleted. It seemed a reasonable request and the vote was carried. Next Manticula rose to her feet and we heard her soft voice speaking inside our heads.

‘I propose we begin construction on the Garden of Contemplation,’ she said. ‘Like Waif Glen in Great Glade, it will be a haven of tranquillity,’ she explained, ‘ a place where all in Farrow Ridge will be able to meditate and reflect…’

She spoke persuasively about how it should be designed, with concentric circles of sallowdrops and blackpines, and with a fountain at its centre, and we have agreed on a site just below Midridge on the eastern shore.

‘If, as councillor Lammergyre proposed at our last meeting, phraxsteam factories are established on the Levels, then it is fitting that these should be balanced by a place of peace and refuge on the other side of the lake.’

When the proposal was put to the vote, it was carried without dissent. Next, Phineal Glyfphith, my old friend, the webfoot leader, climbed to his feet. ‘I shall get straight to the point,’ he said. ‘The Great Clam wishes Farrow Lake be renamed.’

Everyone gasped.

‘Renamed?’ said the Roost Marshal sharply.

‘It wishes the lake to be called the Cloud Catcher.’

‘We white trogs have always called it the Daylight Lake, or the Water Beyond…’ Hirum Gryke objected. ‘Why should we change now, because of a bunch of webfoot goblin newcomers?’

Manticula was thoughtful. ‘We came, like many newcomers, to a place known as Farrow Lake. If we adopt the name proposed by the webfoots, where does that leave the rest of us?’ Her voice was clear in all our heads. ‘The cloddertrogs of High Farrow, the settlers of Low Farrow, the white trogs of the Water Caverns… What of them?’ She frowned. ‘The lake does not belong to to the webfoots…’

‘No,’ said Phineal Glyfphith, ‘yet it has been seeded by one of the immortals. The Great Clam is one of the ancient ones, older even than the mighty caterbird. It honours our new community by its presence. It guides us. It…’

‘It might guide you webfoots,’ Hirum Gryke broke in hotly, ‘but it doesn’t guide us white trogs. We have the Great Stalactite and its eternal droplets…’

The Roost Marshal turned to me. ‘You’re being very quiet, Hedgethorn. What do you think?’

‘I… I’m not sure…’ I began.

Just then, Vitus, who’d been as good as gold till then, suddenly started to jabber and grizzle in that way he has when he’s getting tired. I jiggled him about on my knee and hushed him to be quiet. I turned to the others.

‘Names are powerful things,’ I said. ‘Take Vitus here. I daresay he had another name once, chosen by his parents. But when I found him I named him Vitus - and to me, he’ll always be Vitus. My special little Vitus.’

The others nodded. The Roost Marshal frowned, wondering where my argument was taking me.

‘So it is with the Farrow Lake,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter what name we give it, so long as its waters remain special to us all.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I propose that we each call the lake by whatever name we choose. I shall continued to call it the Farrow Lake, but if the webfoots wish to call it the Cloud Catcher, they should be free to do so.’

The Roost Marshal nodded. ‘A most pragmatic solution, Hedgethorn,’ he said.

With the council business concluded, I left the Farrow Hall, Vitus in my arms. As I stepped outside, I saw Laria running towards us. Her face was flushed.

‘Hedgethorn,’ she said, ‘Forden has sent news…’

‘Make sure everything is securely strapped down, including yourselves!’ Captain Gart Ironshank instructed jovially as we boarded the Wind Zephyr.

It was only a little phraxlighter, traditionally used as a short-haul ferry in the low skies over Great Glade, but now it was as laden as a sky tavern. Every inch of the Wind Zephyr’s decks had been utilized by her captain. Ice-hooks and grappling irons were stowed in the gunwales, oiled leather sacks containing dried tildermeat and gladewheatmeal were strapped to the small aft deck, and firefloats were clustered like sapgrapes on either side of the phraxchamber. A thin plume of steam rose from the Wind Zephyr’s funnel as Kultuft and I clambered aboard and strapped ourselves into the low bucket-seats behind the helm.

Gart was obviously eager to be off. The little community of Farrow Lake was slumbering, the settlements on the east shore with their windows dark, while on the north shore, the cookfires of the webfoot huts had still to be lit. No one would notice our departure. It was just as the captain had planned.

‘This expedition will prove perilous enough without bringing undue attention on ourselves,’ he’d muttered as he’d pored over his sky charts the evening before.

Now, in the cold grey light of early dawn, he pulled back on the flight levers and opened up the phraxvalves, setting the chamber to a steady, vibrating hum. The funnel belched steam as the Wind Zephyr took to the sky and rose steadily higher above the misty tree line.

Soon Farrow Lake and the beautiful Five Falls were distant glimmers of light in the dark, brooding expanse of the mighty Deepwoods. We rose higher, and the great ironwood stands around us dropped away. We passed through misty wisps of cloud and rose higher still. It wasn’t long before the Wind Zephyr was among the billowing mountains of white cumulus, a magnificent ever-shifting landscape of mist peaks and cloud canyons. And still we kept on rising, the air becoming ever colder and the Wind Zephyr taking on a coating of glistening ice.

Gart turned to me, his side-whiskers white and icicle-festooned. ‘Brea out the ice-hooks, Forden, and keep the phraxchamber clear while I light the firefloats.’

I nodded and set to work. At this altitude, the danger of the phraxchamber freezing over was very real, and if it did then the stormphrax it contained would become dangerously unstable. As I chipped away at the barnacles of ice coating the phraxchamber’s surface, Gart lit the firefloats - sumpwood oil burners contained in delicate latticework cages of spun copperwood. They fanned out around the rattling phraxchamber on thin chains, warming the air around it and keeping it stable.

‘Why are we flying this high?’ I asked through chattering teeth as Kultuft whimpered and shivered by my side.

‘It’s an old trick the skycrafters used in the old days,’ Gart explained, ‘taking their vessels up into the high sky and catching the powerful wind currents up there… It’s not without its risks,’ he admitted. ‘But if we’re lucky, we can hitch a ride on the Edge stream to the south and cut weeks off our voyage.’

Just as he uttered these words, the Wind Zephyr bucked and kicked like a gnat-plagued hammelhorn and, but for the straps that held us secure, we’d have been thrown from the phraxlighter to our deaths. Instead, we clung to the gunwales as the little craft was buffeted and pummelled by the fierce forces of the high sky, while around us, the equipment and provisions rattled and creaked and fought to break free.

Just as I began to suspect that my last hour had come and that this brave little craft could take no more, the Wind Zephyr seemed to break free and rise above the terrible turbulence. Now, the wind was rushing past us at tremendous speed, propelling the phraxlighter forward seemingly effortlessly on a cushion of air.

At the helm, Gart slumped back, exhausted but delighted. ‘We made it!’ he beamed. ‘All those hours with dusty old sky charts were worth it.’

‘What now?’ I asked as the Wind Zephyr sped across the great blue vault of the high sky, the air current around it, warm and balmy, in contrast to the freezing turbulence below.

‘We sit back and enjoy the ride,’ Gart laughed, tousling Kultuft’s hair.

Just then, the phraxchamber gave an ominous, clanking shudder that set the firefloats stuttering and smoking and straining at their tether chains.

‘By Earth and Sky,’ Gart muttered, no longer smiling. ‘It seems I spoke a little too soon…’